I Loved You
by mcmachine
Summary: April's c-section with her and Jackson's daughter doesn't go as well as expected.


**_JACKSON_**

Feet away from the line separating the sterile part of the surgical ward and the rest of the hospital, we waited. Our unnamed daughter, beautiful just like April, was quietly wrapped up and held in my arms as she had been since her mother had gone into emergency surgery. Ben was sat beside me, and I know it's more than just my best friend being there for me. He's just as worried about the outcome of the surgery as I am. April had managed to get him to do this. How? I don't know. I sure as hell couldn't have.

For a brief moment, I'm distracted by the yawn that opens my daughter's tiny mouth, enthralled by her delicate state. She had April's lips.

That thought was more than enough to send me spiraling once again – what would happen if she didn't survive the surgery? I'd never kiss those lips again, never hear them speak. She would never get to know our daughter, and our daughter would never get to have her mother. She would never know April and never be held by her, never be sung goodnight by her sweet voice. This little girl needed her. I needed her.

"Your momma is so brave," I whispered to her, dropping down my head to rub noses with her. "And she loves you so much." So much that she had been willing to risk her own life so you wouldn't have to.

Ben's eyes were on me and I knew it. They were on me just as much as they were on the doors, waiting for Bailey or Arizona to come out and deliver the news, to tell us that April was going to be fine and they were moving her up to post-op now, that we could see her in a few minutes.

A deep breath is sucked through my nose to try and calm the pounding in my heart but it doesn't make a difference. There's nothing that was going to calm me down until I knew she was alright. I should have been there, not Warren. Maybe I would have been able to talk her down. At the least, I would have been able to talk Ben out of doing it – it wasn't his fault, I knew that, but it was hard not to shake the more I let my thoughts spiral. The only thing that was keeping me from doing it was the small baby girl in my arms.

We hadn't even named her. We'd been so distant lately, planning everything at an arm's length, and this seemed like the universe's way of telling me just how shitty of an idea that had all been.

I loved her. I needed her to know that.

The doors finally open and Bailey's revealed, and I let go of the breath that I had been holding onto. I want to get up to approach her but I find myself frozen and unable to move, barely even able to straighten up my back as I awaited the news that she had come to deliver.

"Jackson," she started. The softness in which she addressed me by my first name instead of my last like she normally would have done, the hurt and tears sparkling in my eyes, it tells me everything.

 _No_.

"Jackson," Bailey repeated. "I'm so sorry. Arizona and I did everything that we could but there was just too much blood lost at the scene and we couldn't get her to come back."

I don't know if she had more to say on the matter, but at this point, it doesn't matter. Ben's hand grasped onto my shoulder and I know that he's about to try and offer me comfort, but I can't just sit here with our daughter and pretend that everything was fine if she was dead on the other side of those operating room doors. I turned toward Ben, unceremoniously placing the baby in his arms. Perhaps it's not as delicate as it should be but I can't focus on anything. The hallway seemed to spin around me and both of their voices were somewhere in the background, barely being processed by my auditory receptors. None of it mattered.

Rules be damned, I rushed past Bailey and over the sterile line, practically sprinting to the operating room that I knew she had been in. Arizona was in the scrub room, sobbing over the sink. I can't be bothered, moving past her as well and into the quiet O.R.

A sheet had been placed over her body for modesty, and there's blood on the floor from where she had been open. One of the last of the leaving scrub nurses sees me and looks at me with those eyes – the eyes that we give the family of a patient who had just died, of someone who was about to go through insufferable pain and mourning. I'd given them so many times, yet I have never received them. Not like this.

My hands wrapped around the edges of the sheet and gently pulled it back to reveal her face. She was paler than I had ever seen her before. I had teased her so many times about the lack of color, how easily she freckled after a little time in the sun. Now, with barely any color left, the freckles coated lightly across her cheeks and shoulders seem to stick out more than ever.

Trembling, I place one hand on her cheek, holding her face. She was cold already. They say that you're not dead until you're warm and dead, but there's something much more disturbing about touching the cold body of the woman that you love. She was gone. It felt as if who she was, all the magical little quirks that made her unique, had already escaped from her body. I didn't believe in God and Jesus, but I did believe in souls. And hers had already left her body.

"April!" I sobbed out her name as I collapsed onto her, clutching her lifeless body as I could shake it and bring her back to me. My face fell into the crook of her cold neck, the place that my head had always gone when she attempted to bring me comfort. But now, there's none to be found. Her arms don't wrap around my frame and accept me with a warm and loving embrace. I can't think of the last time that I had held her like this, that I been this close to her. Normally I would have been able to smell her shampoo, her perfume, but now everything was sterile and smelled like nothing more than blood. She's not there anymore. She's just a shell. The woman that I love is gone.

"Please, no," I begged her, gripping a little harder. Maybe if she were alive, the marks would have left bruises against her skin. "Please, God, don't do this to her. Please. She's gonna love that little girl so much. And she's going to need her momma. Please don't do this to them."

Tears stained her skin as they escaped without anything to slow or stop their flow, falling on the slope of her neck and collarbones. I don't want to let go of her. I don't want this to be the last time that I see her. I remember our last conversation, about the 3D ultrasound. I'd reached out to touch her like it was a habit and withdrawn my hand at the last minute. I should have done it. This wasn't the same.

No amount of begging would bring her back to me. It was far past the point of that. Yet I continue to do so, to plea with a God that I didn't believe in, to wonder if this was some kind of wicked punishment against me for choosing actively to not believe in him. But what kind of God could be so cruel? April had loved him, had dedicated her life to him, to following his word and preaching it. Surely he wouldn't be cruel enough to do something like this to her. She was good and kind, pure in every sense of the word. She didn't deserve this. She had worked so hard to bring Harriet into the world, to make sure that it wasn't a repeat of Samuel for the both of us.

Yet this was worse. This was losing my best friend, the love of my life, my everything. There was no way that I was equipped to survive the kind of detrimental loss that this was.

I hated him. I hated God for doing this to her. She deserved better than him, miles better. She deserved a full and happy life with our daughter, to see her grow up and to love her, to hold her and sing to her, to love her. To have all of the things that neither of us ever had with Samuel. She deserved all of it and more. To know that she was never going to have this broke me even further than what her death could. She would never get to be the mother she wanted to be. She would have been such an amazing and loving mother, such a strong and passionate one, I knew that. But our daughter would never get to experience it for herself.

 _I want you to promise me something. If you love someone, you tell them. Even if you're scared that it's not the right thing. Even if you're scared that it'll cause problems. Even if you're scared that it will burn your life to the ground, you say it, and you say it loud and you go from there._

My mentor's final words to me rang through my head once more, gripping my heart and ripping it out. Mark was the last time that I had lost someone so important to me, and his words had served as inspiration. He had been the one that I was thinking of when I stood up at her wedding to Matthew and interrupted, declared how much I loved her for everyone to know and hear. Yet I had thrown that away. I had pushed for a divorce and I had thrown it all out. She had died without knowing just how much I really loved her.

Now I would never get the chance to tell her, to make sure that she knew.

"Jackson…" Arizona's soft voice interrupted my grieving. I don't look up to her, instead, holding onto April even harder. I cling, refusing to let go. I don't care that she needed to be taken away. "Jackson, you need to let go of her." She tried to tell me. But I don't listen. She placed her hand on my shoulder, and I tried to shake it off.

"No, I can't." I shake my head against her, squeezing my eyes shut tightly. I don't know how to let go.

"Jackson, you have to." She reminded me. "I can't imagine how hard this is for you. I'm so sorry." She murmured, her hand rubbing my upper back. "But you can't do this."

"I love her," I whispered out, my voice raw. "I still love her so much. She'll never know that."

"I know." Arizona murmured. "I do too. I do too." Her hand stopped on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "We did everything we could. And I am so sorry that wasn't enough. I'm so sorry. You should be with your daughter right now. You don't want this to be your last memory of her."

There's a part of me that thought she was right. Some people needed the closure of seeing the body of their loved one after they had passed, yet there's nothing about seeing her in this way that made it feel more finite.

I barely pull back away from her, keeping my hand on her cold cheek. There's no flush of color. Her eyes aren't going to open and light up with excitement ever again, she's not going to get to hold our daughter for the first time, she won't get to help with naming her. All of those decisions had unceremoniously been dumped onto my shoulders without any warning. I knew that it would be hard to navigate raising a baby with the two of us already split up and living separately, but any difficulty there would have been more than worth it because the two of us would have still been together, one way or another. Not anymore.

"Come on, Jackson," she spoke once more. "Let's go see your little girl, okay?"

With not much choice left in the matter, I don't resist this time as Arizona pulled me off of April's body. It's hard to think of her this way, cold and lifeless, still. She was always so full of life and energy, even if we weren't on the same page or best of terms. That was how she was meant to be. Not like this.

A weight of pure agony slammed into me as I straightened up, feet scuffing against the floor. I can't look up from it. I can't stop thinking about how she looked there. At least someone had the courtesy to close her eyes before I had gone in.

Ben and Bailey were on the other side of the door waiting for the two of us to emerge. Ben was still holding onto my daughter, Bailey standing right next to him with a hand resting on his arm. Both of their eyes are shining from the tears that they had shed, Ben's particularly red. But I have to imagine that my own are redder.

"Is there anything that we can do for you?" Bailey asked when she stepped forward, clasping her hands together. There's no answer that I can give her – not when it was too late to save her.

I shook my head, too numb to find any words to say.

"You've got a beautiful daughter, Jackson." Ben stepped forward, lowering the little girl in his arms just a little bit so that I could have a better view. I drag my gaze up from the floor, focusing on the little baby. She looked sleepy already, giving slow little blinks. She had long eyelashes, just like April. My nose, but so much of the rest of her looked like her mother. April was all I could see looking at her, unable to stop the thoughts rolling through.

"She looks just like her," I mumbled, tears continuing to burn in my gaze. I blink a few times, trying to keep them at bay, but it doesn't matter. They spill past my lids regardless. "Just like her," I echoed.

"Yes, she does," Bailey echoed with a sad smile on her face.

"Did you guys already pick out a name for her?" Arizona asked softly as she looked up at me, placing one of her hands on my upper arm.

I shook my head, tightening my jaw and trying not to break down again. "We barely even talked about it." I knew some of the names that she hated when she had been pregnant with Samuel. No last names as a first name. No basketball players. Simple things.

"I'm sure you'll pick out something wonderful." Bailey offered supportively.

"May I?" I asked Ben, holding out my arms so that I could hold my daughter again.

Ben nodded and stepped forward, placing the little girl carefully in my arms. I was careful to support her head, and I could practically hear April's worried voice in my head making sure that I did. I had to raise this little girl exactly how she would have wanted me to. I owed her that.

Another tear slipped down my face and fell off my cheek, landing directly on the little baby's cheek. I sniffled and wiped it away quickly, giving her tiny cheek a little affectionate rub. She stirred but otherwise didn't make much of a fuss about it. She was already a strong little girl, already more rational than it seemed like I was capable of being in the moment.

"Your momma loved you so much, little girl." I dipped my head down, kissing her forehead.

"Yes, yes she does." Bailey agreed, and I catch her wiping away a tear of her own. "And you know if you need anything, anything at all, then we're going to be here for you, every step of the way." She reaffirmed.

Maybe in the coming days of pure exhaustion and feeling defeated by the little girl, I would be able to appreciate the sincere words that she was offering – that others would no doubt offer, once the news had spread around the hospital. But at the moment, they feel meaningless. She hadn't been able to save April. Neither had Arizona. That was the one thing that they could have done for me, and they hadn't been able to. Nothing else mattered without her.

My pager buzzed in my pocket, and I sighed, shifting the baby to one hand to get it.

"Don't," Bailey shook her head. "Ben and I will handle whatever it is. You need to be with your baby girl right now and not thinking about anything work-related." I'm in no mood to argue.

"Why don't we go up to the nursery?" Arizona suggested, moving in front of me just a little bit to try and get my attention as the pair walked down to the emergency room. "We can have Karev check her out, get her little footprints, all that good stuff."

"It's all already done." By one of the other doctors, granted, given that everyone was pretty much at Owen and Amelia's wedding. "They want to keep her for a night or two to monitor her breath sounds, but they said it should all be fine."

"Okay," Arizona nodded. "Why don't we let her get a little rest for the night? You need it to."

She's right, but now I don't want to let go of her. I clutched onto our little girl a little girl, sucking in a deep breath and smelling that intoxicating baby smell people always talked about. I'd never really picked up on it before, but suddenly it made sense when it was a perfect little combination of me and April. She was everything that I had ever wanted, but it was also completely different to do this without April.

"She needs a name," I muttered, staring intensely down at her. Little light eyes open and stare up at me. I'm just close enough that she can probably see me clearly.

"I'm sure that you'll be able to think of something," she rubbed my arm. "Let's go up."

Another thing that I don't have the energy to fight her on. I followed Arizona to the elevator and we take it up to the nursery. I rocked her gently. It's almost a little ironic, how quiet she was. Babies were defined by how much they cried. Yet here, I was the one crying, and she was pleasantly quiet.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. This little baby girl was supposed to have her mother. We were supposed to figure out how to navigate this parenting thing together, go back and forth, disagree and yet figure it out regardless of what was happening. We were supposed to fight and argue and overcome because of how much we loved the little girl that we had created together. Maybe we were ever supposed to come back together one day because of it, like one of those stupid movies that she would have made me watch back in the day. Now we would never have that chance. Now I would never get to know if she still loved me.

Yet I still loved her so much.

My heart swelled just thinking of her, wishing that I could have the chance to hold her one more time, to kiss her on the forehead and remind her how much I loved her. To smell her perfume, feel how soft her waves of bright hair was, see the sparkles in her eyes that had so much life. I could have killed to hear her laugh one more time, feel her playfully punch me in the arms or roll her eyes at something I had said.

More tears had fallen past my cheeks by the time that we had walked the distance from the elevator to the nursery. I should give her to one of the nurses, but I need to name her. I need to give her something that April would have approved of, something to remember her by.

"I think I know what to name her," I breathed out after a moment, looking up at Arizona.

"Oh yeah?" The blonde asked, blinking and looking up at me. I nodded my head slightly.

"May. May Kepner Avery." I answered, swallowing and looking up at her.

Tears sparkled in the blue eyes that stared back at me and Arizona gave a quick nod of her head. "May comes after April." She expressed my thoughts clearly and I gave a pained smile. "That's beautiful, Jackson. I really like it."


End file.
